I can't believe I forgot to add this to my previous post, but just recently, David Attenborough celebrated his 100 birthday!  Cheers to his lifetime contribution towards learning and conservation!  Here's a quick link, though you can easily search videos about him:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-o-9h_hGpn8

Apparently, he's still keeping active and making nature documentaries.  In particular, I am currently watching this one called "Life that Glows":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqZDHb_eQlY

Uh I don't want to make it sound like all I ever talk about are guns... even though I do handle them nearly every day, but I promise I have a quick point to make here.  Similar to what could have been any endeavor for anyone else in life, this has been a decades-long journey of discovery and learning for me.  And now, as of last night, I believe that journey has officially come to an end.  It's just a strange, bittersweet feeling, when you've spent 30+ years of your life working on something, and now you are stopping it.  You know what I mean?

Now that I've been able to sell most of my accursed P320 pistols, I was finally able to install what is intended to be my retired, forever-home holster for my retired, forever-home Glock pistol last night.  As I was doing so, I was also watching bird videos.  When I am working on something, or eating dinner, I typically run some YouTube video or show in the background.  For this particular night, YouTube has somehow decided that I would be very interested in cuckoo birds.  Before, I almost never watch bird videos, but YouTube turned out to be right about me!  I was totally engrossed by these bird videos.

For example, cuckoo birds really burn my bacon for no good reason.  The mothers would lay their eggs in other bird nests, expecting these other birds to raise their young for them.  When they hatch, their first instinct is to push out the original bird eggs and fellow hatchlings, so that the parent birds will direct all of their food and energy into taking care of them.  And when they grow up, they have also been known to eat the hatchlings of other birds, including the same species as the ones they used to push out of the nest when they were young!

So here I am, late into the night, just getting too emotionally invested against these cuckoo birds.  I mean, it's not like cuckoo birds are like humans, who can consciously choose to do evil.  I know that's just their instinct driving them towards survival, so I really shouldn't be all that upset about it.

Still though, I've been binge watching bird videos since.  YouTube just keeps suggesting them!  From chickadees to wood ducks, the babies are just so cute!  Hmm, I don't know where any of this is going, but I do wonder if having bird houses and feeders are a good way to control mosquitos in my backyard?

This isn't finance-related, but maybe you guys might find it interesting nonetheless.

I was out today, roughly between 1200 to 1500 (3pm), and when I got back, I noticed that my front door's deadbolt was unlocked.  It's highly unusual because I basically never forget to lock the front door.  Upon inspection, I also saw this black tape obstructing the front door's latch hole.

While it is theoretically possible that I could have forgotten to lock the deadbolt, I 100% definitely did NOT block my door lock with black tape.  I have never done that to any of my doors before. Ever.

There are only two times I have seen this trick of blocking the door lock mechanisms.  The first is when electricians want to get in and out of a typically locked room (to electricals at a commercial building) that they are currently working on.  The other is when a burglar or home invader wants to break into a house later, without any fuss or make any sounds doing so.

Assuming the latter, I immediately went and replaced my front door locks while there was still daylight.  Now, this isn't going to actually stop a burglar who can pick locks (which honestly isn't that hard to begin with).  I can only assume that's how the deadbolt was unlocked in the first place, as there were no signs of distress on the door frame.  Still though, replacing the deadbolt was long overdue anyway, and I got to pick the color that I wanted instead of this ugly two tone from two different brands that the previous owner installed.

Unfortunately, I have been burglarized before.  Perhaps that's just how it goes when you are living alone, and with no dogs for protection.  The first time, I was still working full time to overtime, so I was hardly at home to begin with, and a mostly empty house is just asking for it.

Even though I am now at home most of the time, I don't suppose I make it all that obvious that the house is occupied?  For one person, there is just no reason to have the lights on for most of the house, you know?  Like why waste electricity like that?  From the outside, it probably still looks largely unoccupied?  Even though there is usually some light and music coming from my room these days.

Anyway, burglaries around here typically happen in the middle of the night, say around 0300 to 0400.  I'm already geared up and ready to go, JUST IN CASE something goes sideways.  Don't worry though, I'm not looking to get into a fight or anything.  The plan is just to call the police and have them handle it.

I don't know if it's worth blogging about this, but this is just a part of what's going on in my life.

To make this as succinct as possible, I have quite a few Sig P320 pistols.  There are a lot of reasons why I had a bunch of them, but without boring anyone to tears here, the bottom line is when you are an instructor and supposed subject-matter expert, you can't just not know things.  You know what I mean?  Imagine if you are a financial professional, and a client walks in and asks you seemingly simple financial questions, you don't want your answer to be "I don't know", right?  Well, unfortunately, the only way to gain firearms expertise is to have and shoot a bunch of guns... well, to a certain extent.

But that's the past.  Since I'm retired now, I do not need a whole bunch of guns.  Not that I have a whole bunch to begin with, compared to my co-workers, who has literal stockpiles.  I'm talking multiple guns hidden in every room of the house.  Even they would laugh and admit to you they have way too many guns.  But I digress.

Circling back to why I mentioned the Sig P320 pistols: In case anyone didn't already know, they are having a historic fallout due to a series of high profile failures, from not being drop-safe, to accidentally going off when it is not suppose to, even when it is holstered.  Allegedly.  It's a huge rackus, both online and in real life right now.  So much so that most gun stores here don't even buy or sell them anymore.

The trouble with guns is that you can't sell it to just anyone.  Me personally, I only sell to legit gun stores, or proven law enforcement and military folks that I also have to like.  Despite my selective criteria, I haven't had much trouble selling off any of my other firearms, except for the P320s.  I have had to hang on to them for way too long, because nobody wanted these things...  until recently.  I finally found a buyer who is willing to take a couple of them off my hands.  Don't worry, this guy has cleared federal and state background checks, and was a co-worker of mine, so I know him "well enough".  I still had to sell at a steep discount though, but it's still better than hanging on to what is currently dead weight collecting dust.

Yes, I am a weird gun nut, but I'm also a weird fruggie, and while these two worlds most certainly do collide sometimes, I think it's time for the fruggie side to prevail now that I am suppose to be retired and all.

If you managed to make it this far, how about I balance this out with some flower pictures I've taken recently?

See how the petals on the left are darker than the ones on the right?  Wild, right?  I wonder what kind of flower this is, and how that happened?

Here's a couple more of a different kind of flower that I took as I was driving by someone's house.  I hope they didn't see me and think I'm some weirdo in their front yard haha.